Meet the team
School of Humanity team is comprised of world-class learning facilitators, compassionate mentors, passionate administrators, committed partners, and a multitude of other individuals and organizations around the world.
Core Team
Raya Bidshahri
Founder & CEO
Raya is an award-winning educator, serial entrepreneur and futurist featured by the BBC as one of the most influential and inspiring women globally.
Chris Colbert
Chief Growth Officer
Chris is the former Managing Director of the Harvard Innovation Labs and an international speaker on the intersection between humans and next-generation technologies.
Kevin House
Chief Learning Architect
Kevin is the Education Futures Architect at EiM Global, and formed lead of quality assurance at International Baccalaureate.
Claire Evans
Chief Learning Officer
Claire has 20 years of international experience in education in teaching and learning design. She is the founder of Yo Invento and the Academia Icúbico, based in Latin America.
Stephen Rawson
Chief Finance and Technology Officer
Stephen is a strategy consultant at Oliver Wyman. He has previously worked at Goldman Sachs, Lazard, and PwC. Stephen is an expert in data analytics & M.L/A.I.
Kata Csuba
Head of Flourishing & Inclusion
Kata is an educator with over 15 years of experience. She is an internationally certified yoga and mindfulness instructor for over ten years. She previously worked as a language teacher and SEND Coordinator at the British Council.
Mae Rose Dickinson
Head of Growth and Admissions
Mae recently graduated from the University of Bristol with a degree in Law. She is passionate about generating change and shaping the future of education.
Kobus du Toit
Partnerships Manager
Kobus has a decade of experience in innovative roles across traditional, online, and hybrid schools. He has designed youth leadership and innovation programs, taught music and robotics, coached teenagers to find their purpose.
Ashna Mahtani
Learning Architect
Ashna has expansive experience working with multiple EdTech startups as a curriculum developer, outreach manager and an educational consultant.
Isidora Mladenovic
Brand and Storytelling Manager
Izi is a marketing professional with focus on innovation and experience. She previously worked in fashion, wellness and retail with brands such as adidas, Re-Bello and several smaller startups.
Learning Facilitators
Ayesha Farhan
Learning Facilitator
Ayesha is an engineer, solutions architect, and experienced workshop facilitator. She works with tech labs, such as The Assembly, to develop and deliver project based workshops with various technologies, and she carries a role of a Learning Designer too.
Alphonse Devasia
Learning Facilitator
Alphonse is a post-graduate engineer, educator and curriculum developer. He is an educational design consultant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he designs curriculum around A.I literacy and computational thinking.
Saasha Gulamani
Learning Facilitator
Saasha has been a facilitator for over 5 years for numerous youth-based camps in the United Arab Emirates and was heavily involved in organizing and implementing hackathons, debates, and robotics competitions.
Thorsten Klaus
Learning Facilitator
He is a trained journalist and editor and has worked remotely as a Learning Experience Designer and Facilitator for the past two years, with main topics being Filmmaking, History and Politics, Podcasting and German language/culture.
Reema Abbas
Learning Faciliator
Reema is an experienced 3D modeler with a demonstrated history of working in the creative industry involving Interactive technology, video & game graphics, and working in collaborative environments anywhere from VR experiences to 3D printing to on-site interior fit-outs.
Learning Designers
Louise Edwards
Learning Designer
Louise has taught both at university and high-school level before moving into an education consultant role. Her passion for sustainability and social justice has led her to work on projects such as Sea Women Expeditions.
Mick Donahue
Learning Designer
Mick is passionate about creative tech to help people learn coding, VR/AR, scratch and empowering learners through tech. He helped a game company in Dubai create a space-themed game by developing a program for one million coders.
Louie Barnett
Learning Designer
Louie Barnett a chemistry teacher who was passionate about peace building and wanted to make a difference in the world. His main passion is around peace building, peace and conflict, and bringing a global viewpoint around the topic of peace.
Chelsea White
Learning Design Coordinator
Chelsea is an education and curriculum enthusiast with experience in interdisciplinary learning. She graduated from Oxford in Human Sciences, and is currently working with Education in Motion as an AMC Associate.
Industry Mentors
Behshid Behrouzi
Industry Mentor
Behshid specializes in energy, finance, data analysis, and logistics. She began her educational reform journey with her TEDx talk in 2010, titled “What If We Obliterated Standardized Testing?”. Behshid has been an active member of Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE).
Kathleen Walsh
Industry Mentor
Kathleen leverages 20 years of business, user and technical experience. She is a Chief of Staff - Education, Open Source, and Partnerships at Github, and has previously worked with Verizon and US Ministry of Defence.
Gary Sharkey
Industry Mentor
Gary is a Global Sustainability Network Driver at PwC. He’s passionate about smart and Sustainable Cities and in his previous lives has played all sorts of roles including as a mobile games manager, a digital strategist, and an economics teacher.
Tarik Kaddoumi
Industry Mentor
Tarik served as a science and technology researcher at the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Center, as marketing, social analytics and outreach at Google and has been a blockchain advisor at Umbrellab.
Paul Epping
Industry Mentor
Paul is a futurist, innovation coach and medical technologist. He was a principal consultant at Philips healthcare. He is the chairman and co-founder Xponential and as Supervisory Board Member of several companies.
Daryl Goh
Industry Mentor
Daryl Goh is an award-winning entrepreneur, design innovator and tech consultant. He is a nominator and judge for prominent art prizes like the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (Hong Kong) and The Global Art Awards (Dubai) and he lectures at the Nanyang Polytechnic.
Maddalena Campioni
Industry Mentor
Maddalena worked in the United Nations, where she also taught on future thinking. Currently, she is the future and foresight expert at the Early Childhood Authority in Abu Dhabi and a verified contributor at the Dubai Future Foundation.
Advisory Council
Scott Barry Kauffman
Advisory Council
Scott is a cognitive scientist, best-selling author and humanistic psychologist exploring the mind, creativity, and the depths of human potential.
Zoe Weil
Advisory Council
Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education, and the best-selling author of "The World Becomes What We Teach".
Majid Al Shamsi
Advisory Council
Majid Al Shamsi is the Director of Mohammad Bin Rashid Center of Leadership Development. Majid is the project lead and founder of project 42 Abu Dhabi, the first coding school of its kind in the region.
Jennifer Jones
Advisory Council
Jennifer Jones is the founder and visionary behind New York City’s Green Ivy Schools network and a lifelong entrepreneur and advocate for evolved learning experiences for children from birth to high school and beyond.
